The researchers concluded that metro areas with three major performing-arts groups – ballets, operas and symphonies with annual budgets topping $2 million – had an average 2.2 percent increase between 2000 and 2010 in these jobs, also known as creative-class jobs. Metro areas with two performing-arts groups averaged 1.5 percent growth in these jobs, and those with one recorded a 1.1 percent increase.

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The 118 metro areas with at least one of the big three arts groups added a total of 540,000 knowledge-class jobs (12 percent of all those created nationwide), resulting in $40 billion in additional wages over the decade, according to the study.

Because of its performing-arts groups, the Sacramento region added 3,200 knowledge jobs during the decade, producing $211 million a year in added wages by 2010, the study found.

So we should be really glad that Sacramento still has its own opera, philharmonic and ballet after they suffered mightily during the Great Recession. Well into the recovery, however, they’re still weakened and could use all the public and private support they can get. The Sacramento Opera and Philharmonic merged in 2013 to cut costs, but still had to scrap their 2014 fall seasons. Last spring, the Sacramento Ballet had to lay off dancers for the final three weeks of its season.

Arts aficionados around the country will surely try to capitalize on the study as well. Arts Journal promoted the findings as “substantial evidence that performing-arts organizations add to both the growth of the knowledge class and to urban economies broadly.”

The researchers tried to account for other factors that might draw knowledge workers, such as the number of college graduates, weather and other amenities, and admit they didn’t look at the impact of tax incentives. And while they caution that “in the scheme of things, the number of new knowledge-class jobs attributable to professional performing-arts organizations is small,” they also say that winning those jobs “can have significant impacts on the metropolitan economy.”

The bottom line: Any high-paying jobs attracted by the arts can’t hurt.

By the numbers

The number of knowledge-class jobs attracted from 2000 to 2010, and annual income from those jobs by 2010, for selected California metro areas with at least one major performing-arts group:

About This Blog

Foon Rhee, an associate editor, joined the The Sacramento Bee’s editorial board in February 2010 after reporting and editing for newspapers in Massachusetts and North Carolina and keeping his opinions to himself. He graduated from Duke and went to graduate school during a fellowship at the University of Hawaii. Foon Rhee can be reached at frhee@sacbee.com or 916-321-1913. Twitter: @foonrhee.